The God of Small Things... and other things

I know it's cliché to say this, but how is summer already halfway over?! I feel like I'm barely moved-in at home and already August is knocking on the door. I suppose it's better than spending my summer counting the minutes until I leave on Global (which I sometimes do), but I really am surprised at how busy I've been.  As a quick overview, here are some bullet-points on my summer since June 10 (wow, over a month. Way to go, blogger):

Me, Dad, Uncle Fred, Mom, and Aunt Susie in ABQ

• visiting family in Albuquerque, NM for a week of biking, running, hiking, reminiscing, storytelling, and sopaipillas
• two art classes and one travel photography class
• really early morning running and yoga workouts
• the never-ending Global preparations check list
• catching up with high school friends
• the ultimate "spring" cleaning (assessing all of the stuff I accumulated over 4 years)
• hosting friend and fellow Ole, Geoff of Cycling for Climate Change for a week 
• celebrating our country's independence with (lots of) food, (a little less) beer, (many) friends, and watching people blow things up
• the only time, once a year, that it's acceptable for the TV to be on from 6-11am in my house: the Tour de France



Baggins, Mom, Me, and Geoff as the intrepid cyclist heads for D.C.

• oh, and sunshine. That's been a bit distracting too. 

But finally, after 2 renewals at the library, I finished my India book: The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. I had heard excellent reviews of this book, and it was one of the most frequently recommended books when I asked around for suggestions, so I wanted to make sure I actually checked it off the list. Check!

Erin, Geoff, and I survive the scorching heat (and full bellies) at the Taste

The biggest surprise for me with this novel was, considering how much people seemed to like it, how slow it was to get going. I still couldn't tell, with less than a quarter of the book left, what was going on or where the plot was going. Now, I'm sure that says more about me as a reader than it does about the quality of the novel, but it was still... unexpected. It also made it that much more difficult for me to stick with the book-a-day trend I'd been on for a little while back in June. Don't get me wrong: I did like the book, and it did give me many great insights into what I might expect in India. 

Disclaimer #1: I have never (yet) studied India, and so know very little about the caste system and its relation to the country's social/ political/ religious history, but I've had to guess about several of these things so as to make more sense of the goings-on in the novel. If I'm totally off-base on something, please, someone correct me!

Disclaimer #2: The novel takes place in 1969 India, not modern-day India, so again, many of my assumptions or gleaned-information are from the mid-20th century perspective, which is, I hope, probably much different than the modern one. 

Disclaimer #3: Being a novel, I know that the "information" I've received is, at best, generalized. Even still, truths - even ugly ones - are bound to be in there somewhere.

So, disclaimers stated, without giving away too much about the novel, here are a few things I gathered from my reading: 

1. Even after independence, the British, as a culture, no longer as an authority, still have a strong hold on the Indian people. In the novel, the protagonists rightfully describe themselves and their family as anglophiles, but it's clear that anglophilia pervades much further into society, and serves as a mark of superiority among many.
2. The appearance of familial success and honor is much more important to uphold than the actual success and sanity of a family's individuals. Everyone in this novel is a victim to something or someone. 
3. It's going to take a long time for the caste system to be obsolete. The expectations and identities of people all along the caste spectrum have been reinforced for so long that, similarly to racism in America, equality (in it's many settings) won't be achieved by just one generation or one social movement's work. History and tradition are more than reluctant to give way to new customs, resulting in severe consequences for the pathfinders. 

They're not the happiest of observations, but I think they at least provide me with some insight into the complex cultural history I'll be plopping into for a month this fall. I like to think that it's not still all that bad, but there's really no way to know.

One of the main reasons why I wanted to do this reading project before I left for Global was to warm myself up to some of the very uncomfortable realities I'll undoubtedly come face-to-face with along the journey. The God of Small Things is filled with uncomfortable realities - fictitious and not - and although I've been able to put the book down when those things got too real, I know it'll be much harder to close my eyes when those realities are right in front of me in living color.